How to power a waterfall pump?

[ianamke]

I'm installing a 24VDC fountain pump that I hope to run on a battery. However, I won't be able to charge the battery with a solar panel due to shade. I do have 120AC inside a utility room close by. Assuming the pump runs a few to 8 hours a day is there a safe way to automatically maintain the battery's charge? I don't want to manually hook up a trickle charger. Or should I just go with an AC/DC converter? The pump is an AEO model with Pmax of 21.5W at 24V. The battery is actually two 12V mightymax.
Thanks for your help.

 

[mgmine]

It sounds like a lot of work for a small pump and those batteries won't last forever. Why not just get a 120 volt pump and call it a day? Depending on what you want the pump to do you can get a small aquarium pump starting at about $8 dollars

 

[ianamke]

It sounds like a lot of work for a small pump and those batteries won't last forever. Why not just get a 120 volt pump and call it a day? Depending on what you want the pump to do you can get a small aquarium pump starting at about $8 dollars

For a number of reasons I can't run 120v to the pond. The pump is more than strong enough to do what I want even at 12vdc and I plan to set the run time to how fast the the pump drains the batteries. Ideally, I want a charger or 'maintainer' that can be permanently hooked to the batteries to keep them charged. I'm not sure that it is possible.

 

[mgmine]

Yes it's possible but you either have to run a 120 volt electrical wire to the pump or you have to run a 24 volt electrical wire from the point that the charger is plugged in which would be a 120 volt. In either case, you have to run a wire from the 120 volt source to the battery and pump.

 

[poconojoe]

There are many good quality maintainers that you can buy. I own a few of them made by Noco. You can hook them up permanently and they will keep your battery healthy. They have circuits in them that monitor the condition of the battery and apply a charge when neccessary. Don't buy one of those cheap $10 trickle chargers. They won't maintain the battery properly. They just apply a constant voltage and that's not good for a fully charged battery.
As stated by mgmine, you will need to run the low voltage wiring from the utility room.
For the price of a maintainer/charger and possible future batteries, I think I'd switch to a 120 volt pump.
Regardless, you will have to run some wiring from the utility room.
So, it's up to you.